Improved vegetable membrane or parchment



UNITED STATEs PATENT OFFIcE;

STUART GWYNN, 0F NEWYORK, .N. Y.

IMPROVED VEGETABLE MEMBRANE OR PARCHMENTQ quired thickness and Specification forming part of. Letters Patent No. 88,036, dated March 23, 1869.

Be it known that I, STuART GWYNN, of the a city, county, and State of- New York, have invented a new composition of matter, to be used for many purposes in the arts, and that I have named it Vegetable Membrane.

Said material is manufactured on an economical commercial scale, in apparatus and on machinery for which I applied for a patent on the 2d January, 1868. Certain chemical fluids described in the specification of Letters Patent granted to me January 14,1868, No. 7 3,322, are also used in its production; and ldo hereby declare the following, and the specifications above referred to, as in part explanatory of this specificatiom'to be a full, clear, and exact description of the said vegetable membrane, and of the materials from and by the means of which it is produced, and of the method of its manufacture on and by the apparatus and machinery above referred to.

Among the uses to which the vegetable membrane may be applied areas a substitute for-parchment, &c.; for bank-note paper; for printing water-proof labels, &c., on; forlinin g between or covering to textile fabrics, to make them water-proof, &c.; as a book-bindingmaterial, and for similar purposes; for machinebeltings, round and flat; for journal-boxes, used alone or compounded with graphite, &c. for shoe and hat linings; head-linings for railway-cars, &c., and generally as a substitute for animal skins, tanned or untanned, and imitations thereof, as it can be made of any restrength; for photographic purposes and those of like nature; for making beds and mattresses and stuffed furniture, when it is cut into strips or threads, as it forms a clean and elastic material for those purposes, free from any liability to the attacks of insects; and it is unchangeable under ordinary circumstances and will never become mouldy, and it can be boiled or heated dry to at least 400 Farenheit, when'necessary to do-so, to destroy contagion. It is unnecessary to extend this list of the uses for which 7 it is well adapted, as they are very numerous,

and will suggest themselves to the practical manufacturer.

A felt. web, made of cellulose, of which not less than twenty-five per cent. should be of cotton fiber, is the basis used in the manufacture of vegetable membrane.

This web is made as paper is manufactured, except that sizing of any kind should not be used. The transformation into vegetable membrane cannot take place throughout the thickness unless the web is exceedingly thin, and then it is almost impossible to manufacture it in quantity at a cost that would render it of economic value in the arts. Besides, the uses to which this very thin material could be applied would be few and inconsiderable in extent.

A web of the felt two feet wide and one thousand feet long should not exceed, eight pounds in weight. It is made in rolls of from five thousand to ten thousand feet in length. The former is the most desirable size to handle.

The method of manufacturing the vegetable membrane from the web must be varied to suit the particular purpose for which it is to be used. Broadly, it may be described thus: The transformin g-fluid iseven-ly spread over one or both surfaces of the feltby transference from a lead or other suitable roller,

charged byrotating slowly on its axis, im-

mersed one-third its diameter in the transforming-fluid, held in a suitable tank, in which the fluid is maintained ata uniform level by a and thence through the second set of com pressing-rollers; thence into a long tank, suitably lined, containing a dilute mixture of the neutralizing-fluidin water, of about the proportion of one part of the former to two parts of the latter.

compressing-rollers set quite tight, which press out all the fluid that the web will part,

with without a rupture of its texture. It next passes into another tank of water, over and under rollers submerged From the transference-roller the.

tank, be-

As the web rises out of I this tank it passes through another set of therein, and as it through another set of squeezing-rollers, and

finally around one, two, or more steam-heated drying-rolls.

When the vegetable membrane is used between or as a covering to textile fabrics, cementing, calendering, &c., in addition to the treatment above described, will be necessary.

When the thickness required is more than fivefold, it will be found more desirable to pass transformed webs, made up of two, three, four, or five thicknesses, a second time through the apparatus and machinery than to make it thicker at the first operation, .i it'sough I have made it as thick as sixteen-fold in one operation. Thus, to make sixteen-fold vegetable membrane economically, I would first makefourfold webs, and then unite four of these by passing them through a second operation.

To attach firmly and permanently "egetable membrane self to self, no cement other than the transforming-fluid is required; but to put it between or as a covering to textile fabrics, 850., marine glue-and other cementing materials, each adapted to the special purpose, will be required.

Having fully described the materials constituting and used in the production of vegetable membrane, and the method pursued in manufacturing the same, what I claim as my. invention, is-- The new composition of matternamed vegetable membrane, produced substantially as described, and its use in the arts for the. purposes hereiu indicated, and for such others a} it maybe found desirable to employ it in,.eithe alone or in combination with other substance STUART GWYNN.- 

